Covid vsccine

Do what?

Well...I didn't read honestly...is it not bad? lol
Someone reported something

I'm one of the cautious too, for a few reasons. 1) the sheer fact that there are no long term studies. No one really knows the impact of these injections. What's being done is unprecedented.

2) It is an RNA vaccine that causes your cells to mutate and then tells your immune system to attack those mutated cells. Maybe not now, but who knows when.... it could be a an auto-immune bomb waiting to go off. Everyone has to make their own decision about it. For me and the wife, there are plenty of therapeutics to greatly shorten the duration and lessen the severity of the virus. I'd rather catch it and fight it off. Our doc has not played the political games with medications. My mom caught COVID after the first injection. Imagine that.

She was treated with Hydroxy Chloroquine, Zinc and a Z-pack. It was a walk in the park for her which was amazing for 78. My sister caught it. On her third week, breathing became really hard and she went to see our doc, got the same treatment and in 2 days was well on her way to kicking it. Another sister, same story though not near as severe.

3) Antibodies go away. Mom can't get her 2nd shot until she is free of all antibodies. They say if you catch it, you're not immune forever. They same the same with the vaccine - we will need it again. Further, they say of you get the injections, you still aren't safe - still required to wear masks and socially distance. 

No, no hate for anyone getting the injections and I think it is good to talk about it as we hear other perspectives.

One of the most thoughtful and non-judgmental posts in this thread.


Should I just echo your "bullshit" reply to my post? No, because I'm not closed-minded, petty or vindictive. I understand there are differing circumstances and outcomes and I am truly sorry for your loss. Even at 93, losing someone you love is horrible.

I've lost three people to covid, indirectly. 2 because they couldn't get chemo-therapy and the the third to liver failure.
And I know they didn't lose it to hype but they lost it to a compromised health care system (for want of a better term).

Thanks for your comments.

Just had moderna #2 today. We’re dealing with my sisters cancer treatments so technically that makes us “health care providers”, but we got some leftovers ahead of any attempts at getting in the line.

Just had 2nd Pfizer shot today.

Glad to have those 2 shots behind me.
Hopefully, no further type of shots, for a long time.

Wishing everyone here all my best, with everything...
Chris

I had the J&J shot last week. Got it a 10am and at 10pm I had bad headaches felt like crap couldn't sleep all night, reminded my a little of when I had covid. This week I've felt better than ever and noticed I have perfect pitch.

I personally wish there was more research going into antibody testing and how much antibodies actually protect against reoccurrence. The problem is, that doesn't put as much money into pockets.

That said, I've got my first Pfizer scheduled for Tuesday. Hoping for the Vid to be behind us sooner than later. Putting together a fresh cover band and looking forward to having some fun at gigs this summer.

This isn't an argument, and this isn't necessarily a direct response to Rob -- but there's a kind of persistent misinformation floating around these shots. I'm not a doctor, but in my day job I was volunteered into coordinating the COVID response for the Americas for a multibillion dollar company. This doesn't make me smart or anything but I have been kind of forced into being well-informed, as we have had to answer questions for our employees over the past year.

First, it is true there are are no long term studies of these particular vaccines. This is kind of obvious, seeing as they are new. However, we have studied vaccines for around a hundred years in the modern era. We've been studying DNA and mRNA vaccines for around a decade. It is kind of similar to saying there are no long term studies of an all-new 2021 vehicle, but we have a pretty decent handle on cars in general at this point (note that there are recalls from time to time!).

The second one - no one really knows the impact of these injections. But this is too vague to be useful. At this point we know the direct impact, because there were multi-phase clinical trials done for each. You can read Pfizer's report here, for example. In short, in the third phase of the trial they did a randomized, blind, placebo-controlled study with 43,548 participants. This is a very large sample size, and a gold-standard kind of study (far better than any kind of study performed on hydroxychloroquine or other politically-controversial treatments). They followed them for two months, and looked at the results. That was last November or so. These shots are still being tracked, and by now millions and millions of people have received them. At this point we know the impact of these injections: they very clearly work as intended in preventing severe covid cases.

And what's being done is absolutely not without precedent. In 1947 New York City vaccinated 6 million people against smallpox in less than a month after an outbreak. Most people at the time had been vaccinated as children, but the immunity waned over their life. And that vaccine had known side effects, sometimes lethal ones like encephalitis. But it was the right thing to do.

Forgive me but this is part of that persistent misunderstanding. Your cells are like little protein factories. DNA is the management team of the factory, and RNA is the instructions. The RNA vaccine is an instruction list. Your cell factories get these instructions like a work order, and manufacture the proteins accordingly. Or maybe another analogy. Your cell is like a restaurant, and the DNA is the chef and kitchen staff. The RNA are orders that come in. After the orders are made, the RNA is consumed. RNA absolutely does not cause your cells to mutate. It causes the cells to manufacture the spike protein from the coronavirus that causes COVID. Your cells are constantly manufacturing proteins naturally by the same process. The mRNA just slips an order in with the normal orders. 

All vaccines work on this same basic premise. You need an antigen that makes your body get an immune response. They make this antigen in different ways - using a dormant or non-infectious virus, using a different virus that's less dangerous, whatever. In this case, you send an "order" for protein antigens made by your body. After they are produced, your body sees them and responds, and this immune response makes antibodies.
My best friend and college roommate is a doc who works in a hospital in Louisiana. The standard of care changes nearly weekly for them, because we are still learning how to treat. It's well demonstrated at this point that HCL does not work. I don't know why it became a political issue (I mean, I do but it's depressing that it did). The kind of dirty secret is that none of the therapeutics work very well when you actually subject them to clinical trials. Please talk to your doctor about treatments, don't take my word for it. The 'state of the art' is changing fast.

I also don't recommend the fight it off mentality. While it is true that the majority of people have no issues, it almost seems random how it affects people. We have  had a 42 year old employee with no known comorbidities die in Washington and another 51 year old in South Africa. At our location employees I know have ranged from minor response (like a stuffy nose) to missing two weeks (a 29 year old health nut) to being hospitalized. My other college roommate lost his mother (60s) and older brother (40s) within a week. The plural of anecdotes does not make data, so these aren't making a scientific point. Scientifically it's probably going to be minor if youre under 50 and not overweight, or high blood pressure, or diabetic. But just as scientifically there is a risk for anyone of severe illness or some really really crappy side effects (like neurological issues).

Over the past year I went from thinking about like you - I'd rather just get it as I am young and healthy and it doesn't look so bad - to doing a hasty 180 and noping right away from that. I've seen what it can do, and I absolutely have no interest in that kind of gamble. But that's your choice, and that's the way it should be.

This is not correct. The current guidance from the CDC is you can get your second shot as soon as your symptoms subside (same as the ten day isolation guidance) if you get COVID before your first shot or between two rounds. The exception is if you were treated with plasma or antibody treatment - then you should wait 90 days.

And while antibodies do go away (over months), your body does not forget how to make them. This is crucially important! If you've had a measles vaccine, for example, you probably do not have measles antibodies in your blood right now. However, if you were exposed to measles your body would be able to make the antibodies, and protect you. This long-term immunity changes for different viruses, but it is usually years and decades, not months.

We don't know how durable the immunity will be. So far we know the vaccine gives protection for six+ months. Why only six? Because that's as long as we've been giving it. We don't know if we'll need it again - health types are being conservative because we might. I suspect not, unless a very very different strain comes out that the antibodies from this one won't work.***

And, you say "still aren't safe." This is maybe a misunderstanding. If you've been fully vaccinated, your risk of severe illness drops to basically zero. Your risk of hospitalization and death is effectively zero regardless of age once vaccinated - an amazing thing! The reason they want people to continue to wear masks is because you might still get infected and be able to infect others. Personally I think this is way overboard to the risk-averse side, and I expect these kind of restrictions to go away shortly mainly because the vaccines are working really well.

Conclusion: if you want masks to go away, and things to go back to normal, the best thing to do is hope for most people to get vaccines. The worst thing would be if a huge portion of the population doesn't get it. The sooner you hit ~50-75% of the population either already having had COVID or being vaccinated the sooner all of this goes away! But again, I'm an optimist and I think by June the combination of seasonality and the incredibly high rate of vaccination plus recovered folks will mean it's over. I think in some places like Texas it already is effectively over.

Hope this was helpful.


***as an aside, the reason you need a flu shot every year is because the viruses that cause flu are super variable, and change from year to year. The virus that causes the 'rona is much more stable, and doesn't have the fundamental mechanism that flu does that makes it change so much. I'm a big time optimist.

Whew last night was rough. Like my arm was punched hard and my head matched it. Freezing, burning up, no sleep. Coming out of it 24 hrs after shot. Try again tomorrow!

Oh and one thing that is constantly misunderstood.. When the headlines say dumb things like "vaccines are only 90% effective, so 10,000 people out of 100,000 people will get sick" (looking at you CNN and your report on airlines that you had to retract due to this) it simply means that you have a 10% *chance* of getting sick.

It's been grossly overstated for a year from folks interpreting the percentages incorrectly.